Book Review: Waiting to Exhale

This is another dispatch from my book reviews. The audio includes some of my stream of consciousness voice notes that I record when I read. I completed this book in March 2024 and recorded this “podcast” in April 2024. The book review is included in full in text as well as the audio.

What the fuck, Terry? Do you like yourself? Do you like Black women? None of that is clear to me as I’m reading this book. I started it because I have been reading adaptations this year beginning with Erasure and Black Cake. I’d also been hoping to brush up on some older Black fiction. A Lesson Before Dying made me realize there’s so much of the Black cannon that I haven’t touched. I saw that the Noname book club was reading Waiting to Exhale this month so I thought this perfect timing.

Anyway, after reading this one I can say I’m not into the hetty shit (ty Rasheed Newsun for that amazing terminology). We’ve probably all seen the movie.

Waiting to Exhale is about 4 women: Robin, Gloria, Savannah, and Bernadine. Supposedly these women are all best friends. Frankly, I wonder are the best friends in the book with us? These women talk about each other like dogs! Robin is the obvious butt of the jokes because she is a bird. Every man gets a second chance and doesn’t care enough to treat herself or them well. Gloria is the fattie, I wish I didn’t need to write that but I swear Terry makes it seem like Gloria’s only notable characteristic is her size and her child. Nevermind the fact that Gloria is the only woman who owns her own business and has raised a teenager. Savannah is the outside-looking-in character who moved to Phoenix from Denver for a change of pace. We all know Bernadine because her husband left her for a white girl and she set his shit on fire.

I read the book fast. McMillan has a voice, that’s for sure. I found myself constantly shocked by the hetty bullshit. I knew exactly what was going to happen and I still hoped that the book would give me more. Robin deals with family drama that they don’t show in the movie as much and Savannah takes care of her mother and family after receiving a large pay cut to relocate to Phoenix. Those items humanized these women and further reminded me that we have been in economic collapse for at least 30 years. I appreciated that these women spoke freely with each other about their struggles, I guess that’s the friendship.

That’s the extent of my appreciation. I came out of this book with a greater appreciation for Forest Whitaker as a director. He deserves way more recognition. He created this book into a loving portrait of friendship on screen. 

In the book I was fascinated about how little these 30+ women have invested in loving themselves. Only Savannah has a moment where she admits she could be happier alone than pining for a man. Gloria seems to at least have her life together enough to survive without a man but all McMillan wants us to know about her is that she’s fat. And the way these women talk shit about one another? Maybe I’m just part of a different generation. One of my best friends and I were on the phone talking about how we don’t they don’t play mean just joking shit. And I am a judgmental person. My friends have told me how my judgment makes them feel so I’m invested in changing. I’ve tried consciously to remember that my friends are their own adults who will make mistakes and it’s NEVER my job to admonish or chastise them because I am their friend. I love them and I want the best for them. 

I just didn’t see that exhibited in this novel. I spent the whole novel seriously wondering if Terry McMillan likes herself and convinced that at the very least she hates fat people… at the very most she hates Black women.